


Arya x Gendry Week Drabbles

by yourloved



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, AryaxGendry Week 2016, F/M, Lord Baratheon, Modern Era, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:44:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8175475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourloved/pseuds/yourloved
Summary: Arya x Gendry Week 2016 Prompts !





	1. Jealousy

**Author's Note:**

> First response to the day one prompt, Jealousy! This is set if Gendry was the Crown Prince and the Starks came down to stay in Kings Landing when Arya was older! Enjoy!
> 
> Also if the tenses seem a bit messed up at first that was done intentionally! I wanted to imply the disordered/enraged state of mind the character who's point of view the story takes place from!! Hope you all like it and if you want me to continue, let me know!

Day 1 - Jealousy

 

As soon as Robert Baratheon had laid his eyes on Arya Stark, he had ordered his wife to be killed. She had been dead before they had made it back to King’s Landing. 

An apparent illness had taken Cersei Lannister’s life on the road but he knew better. Good King Robert knew that his wife, the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms had been fed arsenic by the assassin ordered to kill her so that she would be well out of the way before Arya Stark turned ten and six years old. 

Cersei Lannister’s death was no great loss to the world. She had been an awful woman to begin with and all that attended her lavish funeral had known it. Barely a tear had been spared for the shrew. The only good things he had received from her were his heirs and his life, which he had been surprised she had not taken years ago. 

Her death had been a means to an end however, a way to free himself to marry his beautiful Lyanna reborn. And marry her he would if he got his way. 

He had truly never wanted someone so badly in his life, perhaps with the exception of his lady’s aunt. He had killed for her without a second thought and Gods knew that she was worth his late wife’s death and more. 

She was beautiful, his Arya was. Wild as the North and more desirable than all the gold in the Seven Kingdoms combined. She set his blood on fire. Arya had her Aunt’s beauty and all of her wildness amplified. She was perfect. Every time she was near, Robert could not help but stare at her with lust filled eyes, following her every move with desire. 

But Robert was so filled with his longing that he didn’t notice the desire that resided in someone else’s eyes when they followed Arya’s movements. He did not notice the smiles that graced Arya’s face whenever she saw him, those smiles which he returned.

However it was a bitter day when Robert finally saw what had been going on before his very eyes for so long. 

He nearly threw his cup of precious Arbour wine at the wall of his chambers just thinking of that day. 

He had been not so secretively courting Arya Stark in Kings Landing for the better part of two months. Trying to seduce her with the promise of court and all the possessions that she could ever want. 

Yet she remained cold and unyielding, polite and seemingly unattainable. She acted like the advances of a King were unwelcome. She smiled prettily but coldly at his compliments, accepted his requests to dance with unyielding coldness and stiffness and always looked rather… repelled by his words. Robert almost couldn’t understand her coldness at first but soon decided that it must be a factor of the age difference between them. Robert quickly settled that it would be fine in the long term she would just have to get used to such an age gap. It would hardly make a difference. 

Ned was no better, being colder than he ever had been but Robert decided to ignore that. Ned always was a bit of a cold fish. 

All his greedy little eyes were focusing on was the beautiful Arya Stark. 

So he continued to court her and when babuls and jewels failed to get a reaction of anything other than cold gratitude and a polite smile, he thought carefully of what he would have gotten Lya if he had had the opportunity.

The spark of happiness that shone in his lady’s eyes for a single moment was worth all the money he had spent on a Dornish sand steel. He had watched her eyes widen with joy as he presented it to and then heard her happy laugh as she mounted it bare backed for the first time, taking off into the Kingswood without a second thought. 

The king had laughed as he watched her play with her pony after she had gotten it, enjoying the way she rode and contemplating what else she would be good at riding. 

Robert felt triumphant. Finally he had gotten a flicker of something out of her. He quickly decided that that would not be the end of it.

Next he bought her the best falcon the Vale had to offer, then he had the finest blood oranges brought in from Dorne which he observed she liked, after which he sent a ship for the finest Tyroshi pear brandy after he noticed Arya had a taste for it. She had enjoyed it all, her thanks getting warmer and warmer with each gift.

However although Robert knew she was pleased, she still remained somewhat distant. No Stark could be bought, he knew that from his experiences with Lya, although it did not stop his attempts with her reincarnate. None of the light she had in her eyes around her father or any of her brothers shone from her when he met with her. 

However Robert knew what he really had to do to grasp her full attention. Weaponry. Swords and bows would get him Arya Stark’s heart. He was sure of it. If he assured Arya Stark that she would be able to run around and play with her swords, act like a boy even if she was Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, she would come around. She would know that marriage to him was not what she thought it would be. What Lyanna had thought it would be. 

So that fateful night, Robert had stumbled out to find his son. His eldest son, the Crown Prince, Prince Gendry. A royal, who seemed to desire a life as a poor blacksmith more than he did his own. 

Robert remembered thinking that Gendry would be able to make a pair of gauntlets to suit little hands with feminine fingers or a chest plate for a chest with mouth-watering tits. He would be able to make something that was just enough to give his future stepmother the idea that she could fight and ride without a care in the world til the end of her days. As long as she had him as her husband and King, by her side. 

He remembered making his way to the forge in the darkness, knowing from the light that Gendry would be there, most likely hammering at his anvil with that all too familiar frown on his face. King Robert remembered thinking that the boy needed to get more women or go to war, that he was too focused on his duty and not enough on his duty to his own cock. 

However most of all he remembered frowning when he heard the laughter of a woman emerging from the wind as he neared that damned forge. 

Maybe that boys finally taken my bloody advice, he remembered thinking, glad his son finally had a woman in his bed on a more regular basis than just whores on occasion. 

The King had moved closer to the forge, pausing only briefly to command his  
kingsguard to stay where they were while he investigated. 

As he had moved further toward the forge, the voices had grown louder yet somehow softer and more intimate at the same time. The stirring wind began to settle and Robert couldn’t help himself as he stepped forward looking into the crack of the doorway. 

He could see his son clearly as he looked into the light of forge fire. He had obviously been working as his entire torso was covered in black coal. He looked sullen as he looked to the left side of the forge, obviously looking at something not in his father’s range of vision. 

Looking on Gendry, Robert felt a flash of paternal pride run through him. His son was built like a weapon. Bludging muscles characterised his body and his height nearly exceeded Robert’s own. Gendry was his very image as a young man. His blue eyes held the same fire and his arms swung a war hammer as well as he had on the battlefield of the Trident. 

If only Arya had seen me then like Lya did, he remembered thinking, his chest puffing out in satisfaction, she would have been in my bed within the day and pregnant with my children not long after. 

“Aren’t you coming back to bed now Gendry? Since out little spat is over,” a soft woman’s voice sounded through the forge, bringing Robert’s attention back to the scene in front of him. 

“I wouldn’t say its over,” he said sulkily, “I’m still annoyed…” 

“Yes well you are a bull-headed bastard at the best of times,” the voice said, coaxing, “But I know you love me much more than you could ever be angry with me so come back….” 

“What happen to the girl who would not say a word of love and ran from anything emotional, ladylike and remotely about marriage?” Gendry grumbled, interrupting her words, his eyes looking to where the woman presumably was. 

“She grew up and had a taste of what love can bring,” the girl answer, a teasing note in her voice. 

Gendry rolled his eyes but a slight smile made its way onto his face. 

“You mean fucking?” he replied, smirking up at her. 

He is my reincarnate, Robert had thought proudly. 

He fisted his hand painfully. 

“Well yes as a matter of fact. Fucking you is definitely an enticing aspect of our little love affair.” 

Robert had to bite back a guffaw. He liked the sound of this lass. 

“Glad to be of service, my lady,” Gendry said, his smirk remaining in place as he gave a mocking bow. 

The girl laughed. Robert could hear her rustling around and he prayed that she would get up, naked as her first name day to give him a glimpse of what he hoped would be as enticing as it sounded. 

His son looked down at his anvil, moving whatever he had been handling off it.

“I still want to marry you,” he said, not looking at her, “I know you never wanted to marry but I want to marry you. You should at least give me the chance to court you properly… ” 

Robert rolled his eyes in disbelief.

This was so typical of his son. He liked to chase skirts as much as any man but as soon as he fell in love with a girl he was as righteous as his uncle Stannis. His son was so proper, it was inevitable that the first woman he truly took as his mistress, apart from that whore he had liked at sixteen, he would want to marry. 

He has learnt too much from Ned’s example rather than mine, Robert thought with a grumble, followed Stannis’ influence rather than my own. 

The girl said something quietly that Robert did not hear but it must not have been an affirmative answer, as they grew quiet for a couple of moments as an uncomfortable silence descended between the two. 

“I cannot believe you are still hammering at your work while I am lying here willing, waiting and quite naked,” the girl said boldly, attempting to re-start their conversation, “I always knew you were more than just slow, you stupid bull.” 

Gendry let out a snort of laughter. 

“I rather thought you liked it when I was slow,” Gendry said cockily as he resumed his careful work on his project, peering up at her with a raised brow. 

“That is true,” the voice agreed.

The girl’s back came finally came into Robert’s visage as he peered through the grate of the door, her long brown mane flowing down her naked back, reaching its end at her tight arse. 

Robert remembered how aroused he had been at the sight of the girl. She was beautiful from behind, all ready to be fucked and thrown away. 

She would enjoy it, he remembered thinking, absolutely sure of himself. 

However the girl just continued to walk toward his son, grasping his face in her two hands and bringing him down so that he was closer to her petite height. Gendry looked uncomfortable being pulled down by her firm grip yet he still let her press the length of her body against him, allowing her to wind her arms around his neck. 

“I like you slow, fast and in between,” she said so softly that Robert had to strain his ears slightly, “I love your careful thought and that slow, stupidly stubborn expression that is always on your face when you’re thinking. I like all of you. No, in fact I love all of you as well you know. Why can that not be enough?” 

Gendry watched her, looking like he wanted to say some but the girl quickly pulled him down into a fierce kiss. Robert almost wanted to call out something, intrude, but supressed the urge. Plenty of time for that when he next took his son for a drink at that whorehouse he liked. 

Gendry seemed to melt into the girl’s kiss, letting go of whatever he was working on in favour of wrapping his arms around her, threading one arm around her waist while the other found her arse, groaning as she deepened the kiss, threading her arms around his neck.

Gendry pulled her up, shifting her naked legs around his waist. 

“I will marry you someday,” he said quietly but firmly, “but for now I think I will come to bed.” 

The girl flicked her hair back, turning to look straight at Robert as Gendry burrowed kisses into the side of her neck. 

“Finally, you stupid man…” Arya murmured as she urged him on. 

The rest of her sentence was cut off as Gendry walked them backwards to the bed Robert knew was in the corner of the forge but he was no longer paying attention. Instead he was frozen in genuine astonishment.

Arya Stark, he remembered thinking, genuinely perplexed, Arya Stark is fucking my son. 

My son is fucking Arya Stark, my future wife, he remembered thinking, starting to anger. 

Arya Stark and my son have betrayed me, he remembered thinking, enraged even further when he saw a small pair of unfinished gauntlets sitting on Gendry’s anvil. 

The bottle of Arbour wine that he had been drinking quickly met its end as it smashed against the floor of his private chambers. 

Robert had been so tempted to storm into that forge. To catch his son balls deep in his Lyanna, in his Arya. That was how the Robert Baratheon of old would have handled such a situation. It had been how he had handled everything with Lya. 

This time, he would be more careful about his plans of revenge.

His violent rage had not helped last time. He had still lost Lya to the dragon spawn. 

Robert’s grip tightened on the arm of his arm. 

He would not lost Arya as well. 

And so he had walked away slowly. The last thing he had heard was a wail of pleasure that only he was ever meant to hear. Instead now his son was the one to have that privilege. 

-

“You know had it been any one else and I would have already killed you,” King Robert said as he stared into the roaring fire in his chambers, his son standing behind him, waiting expectantly to know why he had been summoned to his father’s private rooms. 

Robert saw his son, frowning in confusion, in the reflection of the mirror above the fireplace. 

“How dare you seduce her… How dare you steal my Lyanna reborn…” 

With that Gendry’s entire face seemed to pale. His mouth opening silently, perhaps in attempt to explain before freezing uncertainly. 

“I had expected such deceit from others but you, my own son, my own flesh and blood, how could you?” Robert said, coldly swallowing another glass of Arbour’s finest before letting out a dry laugh as he turned to face his son, “I always thought you took after me but I guess you are more your mother’s son after all.” 

Robert let out a bellow of cruel laughter. 

“Gods knew she was a deceitful, scheming bitch,” he mocked. 

Gendry was silent although his eyes were pained. Gendry had not been especially close to the woman that had birthed him. She had favoured their second son over him quite publically but she was still his mother. Anyone could tell that it pained him to hear her spoken ill of even after her untimely death. He had loved her fiercely and she had returned that love tenfold, albeit showing it but rarely. 

“I did not want…” 

“Save your excuses and justifications,” Robert said sharply, “She will still be your stepmother if you can claim her as such on the wall. Is there not something in the oath of the Night’s Watch about not being able to claim a family…” 

“Father…”

“You will leave this very day and head north toward Winterfell and then onwards,” Robert commanded through gritted teeth, “And if you do not, I will hang you by your balls from the highest spike of the Red Keep.” 

Gendry was silent, his eyes hard as they glared at his father before softening. 

“You cannot mean this. I am your son, your heir,” Gendry protested, “I have to mean something to you.” 

“You do, that is why I am sending you to the wall instead of the executioners block.” 

Gendry’s mouth opened in shock. 

“But nothing was ever official. I did not even know you were courting her until a sennight or two ago…” 

“And yet last night, you were fucking her in your fucking forge,” Robert spat, “You were ruining my lady, putting your dirty, coal stained hands all over her, touching her like only I should have ever done…” 

Gendry was quiet once more. 

“You saw us,” he said painfully, a flash of guilt in his eyes. 

Robert did not say a thing but swallowed his drink in a single gulp. 

“Did you tell Lord Stark?” was his son’s next words. 

“Is your concern at the moment really Lord Stark’s opinion?” Robert spluttered angrily.

“He is Arya’s father…” 

“Of course I didn’t tell him,” Robert interrupted angrily, “Then he might have made you marry the girl in case you had gotten a child on her. We would not want that now would we?” 

Gendry was still silent. 

“Now leave, I want you gone from my view.”

Gendry didn’t move an inch, looking at him desperately, his eyes pleading with his father. Robert did not know for what exactly. Perhaps it was to stay or perhaps it was for his forgiveness. Either way, Robert did not care.

“Out now,” he roared angrily. 

Gendry looked up at his father with apologetic eyes before he began to walk toward the door, stopping only once as if to say something before starting to walk again. 

Robert however spoke once more; he had one more thing that he wanted to know before he never laid eyes on his eldest son again. 

“Actually, I have one final question to ask you,” Robert intoned, looking heatedly at his son, “Did you enjoy it? It was your last act as a future King and a man of any merit, so I hope you at a least got a little pleasure from the little whore that I will soon enjoy…” 

Gendry snapped at that, swinging around on his heel and coming forward to grasp his father by the lapels, shoving him against the wall. 

“Don’t you dare talk about her like that, you fat, old bastard,” he yelled, his voice enraged as he finally spoke, his true feelings emerging instead of the faux respect that he had been parading. 

“Get off me or I’ll kill you on the spot,” the King wheezed against his son, “You ungrateful little whoreson…” 

Gendry slammed him once more against the wall of his chambers. 

“What did you expect old man?” he shouted, “That a young, beautiful women with absolutely no interest in love and Queenship would fall at your feet as soon as you so much as glanced at her. You’re an old man, a fat, old drunkard with only a kingship to recommend yourself. She’s a young woman, full of the energy and passion that only a young man can have a chance of matching. Did you think that she would want to have a life with a bitter old man that she didn’t want or love? That she would want to be fucked by a cock that could hardly stand…” 

Robert roared, shoving his weight back onto his son who faltered against the massive girth.

“Says a green boy, you don’t even know how to please a woman…” 

“I pleased Arya alright,” Gendry said in a menacing voice, “all night and sometimes all day…” 

Robert snarled in anger. 

“She would never love you and never want you,” Gendry yelled, shaking his father, “Just like her aunt never wanted you and never loved you…” 

Robert roared once again, this time his fury superseding any rational thought as he wrapped his hands around his son’s neck. 

“You will not take my Lyanna away from me,” he thundered madly, squeezing his son’s neck, “No one will ever again. Never ever…” 

Robert couldn’t help the thrill of satisfaction that went through him as Gendry started to claw at his iron grip on his throat, as he started to go red and then blue, as he started to whisper aloud the pleas that shone in his eyes as his father chocked him. 

But Robert was too far-gone. He kept chanting never ever, never ever, never ever like a battle cry as he watched his son die at his hand. 

He was aware of nothing else as he watched the light fade from Gendry’s eyes as they began to slip shut. 

He was killing his son and he be damned if he cared. 

Noises started to slip into his consciousness as he began to loosen his hold on Gendry’s neck before rage took over once more and he tightened it again. He became dimly aware of screeching as a weight pounded into his back, a woman’s screaming coming to forefront of his mind. 

A fist was beating his shoulder over and over again, screaming accompanying it. 

“Stop, stop. You’re hurting him, you’re killing him!” 

Slowly the world seemed to come back into focus as Robert loosened his grip on his son’s throat. He let go, watching as Gendry slid to the floor, not sure if he was dead or alive. 

It did not take him long to realise that Arya was the one hammering at his shoulder while Ned was pulling him back by his other shoulder. 

As Gendry slid to the floor, Arya dived after him, a scream being ripped from her throat as she caught his head before it smashed against the floor of his chambers. Another gut wrenching scream came out of her as she cradled his head to her chest, pressing wet kisses against it, crying out something over and over that sounded vaguely like his son’s name. She rocked back and forth; not even reacting to her fathers hands on her shoulders as she continued to cradle her beloved’s head, her tears soaking into the front of her dress. 

Robert should have felt sorrow and guilt. He should have hated himself in that moment for hurting his eldest son. The son that had brought him so much pride. The son that he had favoured so much in the past but instead he felt jealousy flare up deep within him once more.


	2. Protect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back with 'Protect'!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I wrote this but it never felt finished, it still doesn't but I kept writing and found that perhaps a continuation of this will come up the prompt "Command"! I really wanted to write an Arya fractured by her time at the House of White and Black! Like she's kind of still deciding to be Cat (Cat of the Canals!) or if she wants to be Arya again!

At only the age of sixteen, Arya had been a prisoner too many times to count. 

After her father’s execution and her escape from King’s Landing, she had been held captive by a group of crooked soldiers headed for the dreaded Harrenhal. 

Soon after her escape from them, she had become a prisoner once more after being swept away by the Hound, who had wanted to exchange her for all the gold he could get. 

Then she had become a prisoner yet again after she had escaped the Hound only to fall into the hands of the Brotherhood without Banners, who saw her again as enough gold to continue their cause. 

Arya truly had been a prisoner too many times to count but Cat, on the other hand, had never been a prisoner. 

Cat was a woman who was always in careful control of her surroundings. If she was a prisoner, it was because at that time she wanted to be one. She was a master of all tricks and trades, a connoisseur of violence. She could be no one if she wanted to or she could become Mercy in an instant or Nan. 

However the best thing about Cat was that she did not feel like Arya did. She never felt the heaviness of sadness or the pain of hurt. She was just Cat. She did not feel anything as she was forced to walk to Harrenhal for hours on end, her shoes tearing to expose her feet to the rough terrain below. She chose not to consider the family Arya had had, the love that Arya had felt or how it had felt when all that had been ripped away so suddenly. Arya would have felt it all but Cat did not. Cat felt nothing. 

However not all the other prisoners were so lucky. Cat watched them, their entire beings tired, devastated as they panted along on the way to Harrenhal. Their faces were crippled with pain, their twisted bodies morphing to make their emotional pain physical. Rarely a day went by when one person or another dropped to the ground, never to get back up. 

Cat did what she could out of mercy. The few who received the gift were soldiers but Cat could do no more without alerting even these stupid soldiers to her murderous ways. 

“Well we do a pretty little boy here, don’t we just?” Cat heard one of her captors rasp out as she lay, pretending to sleep on her pallet one cold night.

“This one almost looks like a girl, doesn’t he lads?” another man agreed from a distance, “Shame none of us enjoy fucking that kind of thing. We will just have to kill him if he’s got no merit as a hostage.” 

Despite her normal indifference to the activities of the mongrels that kept her captive, Cat found her curiosity piqued. 

Slowly she shifted, rolling over so she could see the offending members of the brotherhood and their victim. 

She could barely make out the victim as of yet but the men taunting him were as clear as day. Raff and Poliver. She hated them both. She dreamed every night of the day she would finally stick a sword right through them but right now they were serving a purpose. They would met their ends soon enough. 

Her eyes moved, focusing once more on the boy that they were teasing. 

All Cat could see was that he had dark, unruly hair and a fighting spirit, judging from his defiant stance as he glared up at his captors. 

Cat knew that Arya would want to chuckle at that stance, she would want to chuckle at the defiance and indignation that was laced throughout his being. Such things Arya would admire about a person ordinarily. Here however, Cat knew that that defiance would ensure his death in a second. 

An unexpected urge of protective instinct went through her on gazing at the young boy. 

He should be hiding in his mother skirts, she thought dolefully as she watched him from where she lay wrapped up in herself not here in a hell no child should have to endure. 

Cat sat up, beginning to move toward the men, wanting to see what the bastards were doing. Peering over one man’s shoulder she saw the young boy properly. He must have been only seven or eight years at most, tied at the wrists, looking obstinately at his captors like he was preparing to charge at them. 

In spite of the horror of their current situation, Cat fought to hold back a laugh as the boy looked at them. He truly looked like a bull about to charge. 

“What is your name, boy? Do you have a wealthy family we can ransom you off to or are you a lowly bastard boy?” 

The boy looked up, quiet for a moment as he stared boldly up at his captors before spitting in Poliver’s face. 

Poliver reared back, roaring in anger as his hand felt for the saliva that now decorated his face. 

Cat knew what would happen next. The boy would die and not painlessly. He would suffer a long and painfully drawn out death at the hands of the two fuckers. It wouldn’t be the first time that they had hurt someone. It wouldn’t even be the first time that they hurt a child. 

For some reason Cat’s throat clenched and she was Arya again for a second. Arya had watched too many innocent people die. She had seen it time and time again. She has seen little girls raped and killed before her eyes while she was tied up and unable to help them. Seen the gratitude that resided in those eyes as they felt the cool comfort of death come nearer. She herself had given that gift to those who needed it. Cat had felt nothing but Arya ached for revenge. 

“Raff, why don’t you go get that rat we like to keep for the special prisoners, I think I can find a bucket lying somewhere about here…” 

For some reason the part of Cat that was Arya took over in that moment and Arya could not bear to see the child die. 

She quickly dove forward to push herself in between Poliver and the young boy. 

“No, do not touch him,” she warned as she stood in front of the boy, pressing her back to him, “House Stark will pay the ransom for the boy… This is Lord Rickon Stark.” 

Poliver growled at her while Raff paused, looking at her suspiciously with an angry frown. The rest of the men around them paused too as she stood defiantly in front of the boy, looking at the child behind them eagerly. 

Greedy, she corrected, they want the bounty that would come from ransoming off a young Lord. 

“How do you know that that is Lord Rickon, girl?” one man asked, his deep voice reverberating through the cold night air. 

“I passed through Wintertown multiple times in my travels, the Stark children played in the streets of Wintertown. Many a time, I myself played with the youngest girl, Lady Arya,” Cat lied, “I know a Stark when I see one and I know this to be Lord Rickon, youngest son to the Lord of the North.” 

The man’s eyes narrowed at her in uncertainty but he soon dismissed the men. 

“We shall let the Mountain decide your truthfulness on the morrow when we ride for Harrenhal, he had met Lord Stark and his children many a time,” the man said, a glint of a wicked smile on his face, “He will decide your fate. For now girl, you have charge of the brat. Stay close to the firelight where we can see you both.” 

Cat nodded, watching the man carefully as he moved away. Once the majority of the men were moving toward their bedrolls, Cat finally turned around to look at the boy she had protected. He returned her look, looking one part awed and three parts suspicious as he stared up at her.

Cat learnt forward, plucking at the knot of rope that tied his hands together. She was silent as she worked but she could feel the boy’s eyes on her, never leaving her face as they regarded her in suspicion.

Cat couldn’t blame him. She too would have been suspicious of a stranger helping her. They lived in a world where there were few good men in comparison to the evil and helpful strangers were not always helping out of the goodness of their hearts. 

Once she untied the rope, she pulled him over to her bedroll, pushing him down into it before she spoke to him quietly. 

“Go to sleep,” she said softly, “We have long day ahead of us walking tomorrow .” 

The boy nodded warily before speaking. 

“Why are you doing this?” he said, speaking for the firs time in a low voice that bespoke of his roots being further south than hers. 

“Would you rather I had let them kill you?” she countered with a raised eyebrow. 

“No my lady but…” 

“Don’t call me that. I’m not a lady. My name is Cat,” she interrupted, trying to avoid his questions, “And from now on your name is Rickon Stark, lordling of Winterfell...” 

The boy frowned. 

“But I am…” 

“You’re Rickon Stark,” she interrupted in a fierce whisper, a stern look in her eyes, pressing a finger lightly over his mouth, “Or you will be dead within minutes…” 

The boy nodded distractedly as his innocent eyes darted around him. 

“Go to sleep,” Cat said, finding herself in the unexpected position of needing to be soothing, “I will protect you while you rest.” 

The boy looked up at her with keen eyes before they began to droop. Within minutes, he was asleep and Cat was once more alone in the cool, dark air. 

\- 

The next day, the men did not move as swiftly as they had threatened. They had yelled at their prisoners to get up, rustling them to get all to get a move on. However soon they had stumbled across a small town. Immediately the men had settled at the whorehouse, leaving some of their more rowdy prisoners tied up and in the charge of a pimply youth, whose jealous scowl deepened with every moan of pleasure that they heard come out of the brothel. 

At first the few prisoners that were tied up stayed silence. However little by little as afternoon drew on to evening, hushed whispers emerged from amongst them. The boy who had been guarding them had been quickly lured away by a big-breasted whore and Cat felt the little boy snuggle into her for warmth not long after. Cat herself was not cold. Arya had been a Northerner, built from the Kings of Winter with the blood of the first men running through her veins. However the boy snuggled into her was a Southerner who had probably never felt real cold. 

When the boy realised that their pimply guard would not be returning any time soon, he looked up at her eagerly.

“Do you think he will send out another man to guard us?” he whispered, looking up at her trustingly. 

Cat’s eyes flickered to brothel, listening to the laughter and grunting that was emerging from its open windows. 

“I think not,” she said firmly. 

“My name is Edric Storm,” the boy filled in seamlessly. 

Cat learnt further in so that none of the other prisoners around them would be able to hear their conversation if they woke. 

“You are from the Stormlands?” she asked in quiet interest. 

“Yes I am learning to squire under Lord Baratheon at Storms End,” he replied, his eyes looking at her keenly as a trusting light began to enter them. 

“Why are you so far from home?” Cat asked in confusion. 

“I’m not, my lady,” the boy said respectfully, “Storms End couldn’t be more than a day’s ride from here at the most…” 

“We are near the Stormlands?” Cat said with a frown, ignoring the unnecessary use of a title. 

“You are in the Stormlands, my lady,” Edric exclaimed, prompting Cat to hush him gently before she considered what the boy had said and its implications.

She had guessed them to be in the heart of the Riverlands. It was the threat of their close proximity to Harrenhal and the Mountain that had prompted herself to consent to be their prisoner. She would be taken straight to the Mountain, who would promptly find himself given a very special gift. 

“These bastards told me we were nearing Harrenhal,” Cat whispered, “I should have trusted myself, I knew it was odd that we had not yet reached the Trident.” 

“We couldn’t be that far north, my lady,” the boy murmured back, “I couldn’t have ridden that far on my own in that amount of time…” 

He trailed off, looking troubled. 

“I disobeyed my lord and sought to run far from his wrath,” the boy answered, “but I rode too far and lost my way heading what I thought to be north. My brother will be worrying after me by now.” 

“If you are a squire, why did you not tell these men? They would have ransomed you to your Lord master?” she asked curiously. 

“I did not want to earn my lords ire,” the boy said quickly, “if the lord knew I was to captured and a raven was sent to him, my brother would demand my safe return and men would be sent to retrieve me. That could get people hurt. I will get home without his help. He will be most pleased with my quest.” 

Cat could not help but smile at his loyalty, stroking his unruly black for instant in genuine affection that she had not felt the likes of in years. The wonder and awe that he spoke of his lord with endeared him to Arya immediately. His romantic notions of a quest made her smile as she thought of another such person that Arya had known. A girl who believed in knights and the love that was promised in songs. 

It is better than he thinks of all with romantic fancies like Sansa would have; she thought warily, it would protect him in some regard. 

Cat knew now that she would have to act now. She would have to escape soon. It was time. Now she had a better idea of her bearings, it would head south. She had been using this band of ruffians to guide her further north but now she had someone else to consider. Someone who had to get home and once she saw him to Storms End, Cat would follow the Kingsroad north to King’s Landing. The Mountain could wait until Cersei Lannister met her untimely end. 

“You’ll come with me then, I will get us away from the bastards soon enough,” she said with a cunning smile, her smile growing when the boy nodded his head erratically before his eyes darted warily to the other people, the majority who were now sleeping around them. 

“Sleep now. Not long now and it will be dawn.” 

The boy soon drifted off to sleep, clutching her body for warmth as he slept. Cat however lay awake for many hours that night, planning and thinking, knowing that by this very time the next day she would most likely be running across country with a child by her side, free of all this. 

\- 

As morning drew nearer Cat worked with swift hands on the ties that bound her. She had been trained for feats like this. Escaping was never going to be a challenge. 

Edric was quiet as she began to untie the knots that kept him bound and when she pulled him up to begin the quiet walk towards the horses, he stayed so close to her side that she could feel her elbow brush his as they walked. 

The men were balls deep in their whore when Cat cut through the rope that bound one of the horses outside the brothel. She quickly helped Edric onto the horse before swinging up in front of him with ease. 

Cat was ready to bolt before her eyes once more found the other prisoners. Many of them were awake now, staring at her in a dull daze of envy as she escaped. They would remain at the mercy of these demonic soldiers of fortune. These men and women would be dead soon if they continued onto Harrenhal as prisoners. She knew it and they knew it. 

Quick as a snake, Cat snatched one of the swords bound to the saddle of a horse close to her. She trailed the horse back and forth along the ridge that the horses were tied to be. Being careful to gently cut each rope. 

Then she bolted the horse, feeling Edric clinging to her as it reared back. 

Cat made sure to drop that sword as close to one of the prisoners as she could get. 

\- 

In the hours after their daring escape, Cat made it her mission to put as much distance between them and their former captors as was humanly possible. 

However to the audacious Edric apparently their escape was not daring in the least. Edric seemed to thrive on her silence by enlightening her the different ways in which their escape could have become that of one of the songs. 

“To be daring, I should have charged the men, fought them off and left them for dead in order to save my lady,” he cried animatedly when they were far enough away from their captors to slow their pace, “That is what my lord would have done. He is a fierce knight. Few to none could match him in battle.” 

Cat was quiet as she listened, nodding along as the boy continued to talk of his hero. 

“Lord Baratheon is a mighty warrior,” he cried enthusiastically, “He is taller than a mountain and stronger than a bull. He would have protected us fiercely from those men had he been here to help.” 

Cat shook her head in mirth at his fanciful depiction before she hurried the horse along once more. 

It would be many hours before they spoke again. The boy had fallen asleep on her shoulder, although Cat truly couldn’t understand how he managed to sleep on a horse. 

It was strange to feel the weight of a child resting on her shoulder. It stirred up feelings that Cat had long repressed. Feelings of being Arya, feelings of being trusted and counted on, feelings of being responsible for something outside her own welfare and the desires of the Many Faced God. 

Cat pushed away any thoughts of Arya in favour of hurrying the horse along. 

When they spoke once more, Edric seemed to be full of questions. 

“Where do you hail from my lady…”

“Call me by name,” Cat snapped, “I’m no lady. I have already told you that. Do not make me repeat that again.” 

The boy smiled cheekily before repeating his question. 

“Where do you hail from, Lady Cat?” he asked. 

Cat shot him a look of exasperation but answered nevertheless. 

“I am from up North…” she said unthinkingly but before she could correct herself Edric began his questions. 

“From the Wall?” the boy questioned, his eyes round with wonderment, “Are you a wildling who crossed the wall in secret?” 

Cat shook her head as she clipped the horse, directing it to go faster once more. 

“Nothing that exciting,” she said coolly, “I hail from Wintertown.” 

The boy nodded with wide eyes. 

“Is it as cold as my brother says it is up there?” he asked with dubious eyes. 

“Well how cold does your brother claim the North to be?” Cat said, suppressing an interesting smile that wanted to make its way onto her lips as she spurred the horse on harder, hoping to end Edric’s questions.

“He told me that one could lose a toe if they rested their sword on their boot as the cold would make one’s limbs so brittle that they would break off without much force,” he said incredulously. 

Cat wanted to laugh at that. No, Arya wanted to laugh at that. Instead she settled for dry chuckle and some teasing. 

“Its true,” Cat said solemnly, “I have only three toes left myself.” 

The boy stared at her in wonderment, his eyes darting down for a second to where her feet rested on the stirrups. He opened his mouth to say something but seemed to be at a loss for words. 

Cat couldn’t help herself then. She threw her head back, a roar of laughter leaving her lips. 

Warmth sat on her chest in that moment. It had been rare since she had been separated from her family that she would feel such happiness. Rare that she would feel happiness that would send a bubble of laughter to her throat that seemed like it would never end. 

“You don’t tell it true then?” the boy asked timidly after her laughter finally began to fade. 

“No Edric, I have all ten toes,” she said with an indulgent smile, “Your brother was jesting, most likely wanted to tease you…” 

Edric frowned. 

“I shall ask my lord,” he said, suddenly, “he will not lie if I ask him solemnly.” 

Cat nodded with another smile, shaking her head in mirth. 

“Have you ever seen the wall?” he asked. 

“No I have not been that far north,” she answered, “but my brother is a brother of the Night’s Watch.” 

“He is?” the boy said, his eyes lighting up with wonder, “How brave? Does he fight White Walkers, wildings and their like?” 

“He does,” Cat responded solemnly, “I heard not too long ago a story of a black brother killing a white walker with merely a piece of glass. That could have only been Jon, he excelled at all combat…” 

The boy looked positively bewildered as he contemplated the brave act. 

“Really?” the boy said, excitement shining out of his eyes. 

Cat nodded, grinning at him. 

“One day I will travel all the way to the wall and back,” he declared. 

“Will you kill a white walker while you defend Westeros from the dangers before our Wall?” Cat teased, playing on Edric’s romantic fancies. 

He nodded solemnly with all the determination of a young, fanciful boy. Edric mumbled on quietly more so to himself than to her, leaving Cat with time to think, to consider the position that this boy was putting her in. 

Cat wanted to laugh at him again. She wanted to run her hand through his unruly black hair in fondness. However Cat knew that this feeling of warmth had to go if she was to successfully avenge her family and that meant that Edric had to go too. 

And that saddened Cat as well as Arya. 

\- 

After a day of riding through the sticky heat of what Cat hoped were the Stormlands, both Edric and Cat conceded that neither of them had any idea where they were or where they needed to go to get to Storm’s End. 

Edric tried to be helpful. He described the location of Storm’s End, citing that it was at Durran’s Point on the Northern Coast of Shipbreaker Bay, south of the Bronzegate and northeast of Griffin’s Roost. He also said that the Kings Road went straight through Storm’s End.

He spoke like he was repeating the words forced on him by a Maester. Cat couldn’t help but wonder what kind of bastard boy would be given the use of a Maester but did not say anything to Edric. 

He truly was a sweet boy. A little boy who fancied himself a future knight and a protector of the realm. He reminded her a bit of her sister more and more as he talked, full of fanciful notions rather than reality. Sansa had always wanted to believe in knights that rescued ladies like the songs sang. If Edric became what he said that he would, he would one day be a knight that Sansa sang about. 

Already he looked to her with eyes full of awe. 

Half way through the afternoon, he had told her that she was the most beautiful lady he had ever beheld. Cat had had to stop herself from laughing aloud at his words but had professed herself to be warmed by his sweet nature. 

A couple of hours later, Edric told her that he would ride her back up North if she needed a honourable escort. 

“Would you just?” Cat asked dryly.

“Yes, I cannot let a lady, especially one of such immeasurable beauty, be by herself on the road,” he said grandly, saying words that were meant for the knights of Sansa’s songs. 

“While that is very kind of you,” Cat said, feeling more like her sister than herself in that moment, “I am more than capable of riding …” 

“No I will not hear of it,” the boy said, “I will accompany you as your humble knight.” 

The boy’s eyes were alight with excitement as he talked. Cat could hardly bear the thought that she would soon rid herself of him at Storm’s End and ride for King’s Landing to retrieve what was rightfully hers. Cersei Lannister’s head. 

“Perhaps Lord Baratheon will come as well,” he gushed. 

Cat shook her head in unbelieving mirth but nonetheless she allowed Edric his fancies.

“Perhaps.” 

-

“There, my lady, there is Storm’s End,” Edric called joyfully as he pointed to a magnificent, looming shape in the distance. 

“Are you sure?” Cat asked carefully, “Are you sure that is Storm’s End? It’s nothing but a blob of grey, it could be a neighbouring castle…”

“I could be blind and still recognise Storm’s End,” the boy interrupted triumphantly, his body vibrating ecstatically.

Cat nodded before examining the shape in the distance carefully before spurring the horse onwards. 

By the end of that day, the blob had formed the shape of a castle and Edric was truly out of his mind with happiness at the prospect of being reunited with both his brother and his Lord Master. 

Within another day, they were standing at the castle walls among the small folk who tottered around with their arms full of goods to trade and their faces alight with happiness. 

Cat turned to Edric who was looking completely at ease where he was, bouncing around eager to walk into the open courtyard of the castle. 

“I shall leave you here,” she said, “I have a long journey north…” 

“No please, don’t go,” the boy pleaded, his face turning ashen, “Come inside the castle with me, my lord will assist you…” 

Cat immediately shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to be bowing and scraping around a lord or worse to have a lord recognise her. Cat could not change faces as easily now, she had been wearing Arya’s for too long. What if someone recognised Arya’s Stark features? Cat would never be able to fufill her mission if that occurred. 

“No I must leave you here…” 

However Cat was interrupted before another word could be said as a shrill voice rang out through courtyard. 

“Edric Storm, where is the name of the Seven have you been?” 

Cat’s head swung around to face a fat woman, red in the face, who came marching towards Edric, the latter who instantly darted behind Cat. 

“Your brother has had search parties out looking for you for days,” the woman said, coming forward and dragging Edric out from behind her by the ear as she gave him a sound talking to, “And yet you have the audacity to show up uninjured with no excuse for where you have been or why you took so long to return?”

Edric struggled against her hold but he did not look scared. Instead, he looked rather sheepish.

“Your brother better had give you an earful and a beating you won’t soon forget,” she raged as she shook his ear, “but most like he won’t. He’s much too soft on you.” 

Edric opened his mouth to speak only to be further interrupted by the woman. 

“I have been fretting since you disappeared and all you can do is stare at me,” she exclaimed. 

“If you gave me a moment to speak, Stel…” he began before being cut off once more. 

“I thought to myself when you disappeared for the day, ‘oh the boy has got some fanciful quest or such a notion in his head and that’s why he is gone,’ and yet…” 

She drew in a deep, thundering breath. 

“Then I didn’t see you for two more days,” she yelled. 

“Stel…” 

“Don’t you even try to explain this away,” she said beginning to drag him toward the courtyard, “I’m taking you to your brother this very instant. He’s in the training yards… Perhaps that big, steel hammer of his can knock some sense into you…” 

Edric dug his feet into the ground but fat Stel would not be dissuaded from her course as she pulled him along with her. 

Edric reached out his hand, grasping a tight hold on her hand before letting himself be pulled along, pulling Cat along with him.

Stel muttered as she pulled Edric along. Edric seemed to whimper in pain as he was dragged through the courtyards towards what Cat guessed to be the training yards. 

Cat, who brought up the rear of the trio, watched the scene before her, halfway between giving in to laughter and concern for Edric. 

Storm’s End’s training yards were much larger than any yards Cat had seen in her travels. Men were training with numerous weapons that made Cat’s hands itch to hold them, to swing them. It had been much too long since she had had the pleasure of training with anyone other than the Waif. 

“Well look what the sea pulled in?” a man’s jovial voice said, “Young Edric, where have you been lad?” 

Cat looked at the old man who spoke only to be pulled away from him by Stel’s insistent hand. 

“My lord…” Stel voice called, “Look who I have found…” 

On hearing ‘my lord’ Cat’s interest peaked. 

She quickly turned to survey the man who her travelling companion had so admired. 

However, Stel garnered her immediate attention. She had finally let go of her charges ear and was standing in front of them, hands on hips as her rolls of fat jiggled at the exertion of their journey through the courtyard. 

The second thing she saw however was Lord Baratheon in all his glory. 

Cat almost choked on the air in her throat as she recognised him from the deep recesses of Arya’s mind. 

“Edric,” the man roared, his teeth glistening in the sun as he smiled, his eyes dancing with joy. 

Edric rushed forward, jerking Cat with him for a second before he was scoped up into Lord Baratheon’s arms. 

“Where have you been lad?” Lord Baratheon said as he held Edric up, “I have been out searching for the past three days…” 

“You don’t look so worried,” Edric said listlessly. 

“Well I was you little brat, worried sick that you had followed a distressed maiden into some adventure and got yourself killed because of all your romantic notions of being a knight.” 

“I got kidnapped…” 

“Oh really?” Lord Baratheon said with an indulgent smile as the rest of the men roared with laughter around them. 

“Yes by a group of bandits bound for Harrenhal,” Edric said earnestly to his lordship, “Cat and I only escaped with our wits and our daring.” 

“Oh you little liar,” Stel said enraged, “My lord, I would recommend a hard beating for his insolence…” 

“I’m not lying,” Edric shouted stubbornly. 

“Aye of course not, I believe you,” Lord Baratheon said with a glint in his eyes, his eyes melting away from his brother as they looked to her, “Now who is this? Cat did you say?” 

All the eyes in the courtyard turned to look at Cat, who stared boldly back them. 

However Cat immediately sought out Lord Baratheon’s light blue eyes, examining them curiously. At first she searched their depths for any flicker of recognition but when Lord Baratheon’s eyes revealed nothing, Cat began to take him in. He looked everything and nothing like she remembered. 

“That’s Lady Cat,” Edric said as he struggled down from Lord Baratheon’s arms, running over to Cat before dragging her forward, “She was a prisoner as well. She organised our escape and protected me until she could return me here.” 

“Did she?” Lord Baratheon asked as she came forward, his gaze washing over her warmly. 

“Yes she did,” Edric said with a self-satisfied nod. 

“Well then, Storm’s End is indebted to you, my lady,” Lord Baratheon said solemnly, watching Cat with the same keen eyes that she looked to him with, “You both better come inside and I’m sure you will grant us a telling of your epic adventure Edric?” 

Arya felt herself nodding along with Edric without intending to. 

\- 

“You still find solace in the Old Gods then I see.” 

Cat jumped as a voice interrupted her quiet contemplations in the Godwoods of Storm’s End. She turned to see Lord Baratheon standing a couple of steps behind her. She let her gaze rest on him, watching as he walked further into the Godswood until he was so close, she could reach out and brush his chest without much effort. 

“What is that you want, my lord?” Cat said calmly. 

“You were never one such courtesies in the past, Arya,” he teased, “Has adulthood really changed you so radically….” 

“My name is Cat,” Cat snapped. 

Lord Baratheon gave her a disbelieving look. 

“I do not know why you put on this façade Arya but I’ll not reveal your identity around others,” Lord Baratheon stated, taking her hand in one of his own, an action that inexplicitly made a shiver go right through her, “But do not be some else while you are around me. It took less than a second to recognise you and I will not be fooled.” 

Cat closed her eyes tiredly for a second before extracting her hand. 

“What is it that you want, my lord?” she said formally, watching as the hopeful light faded from Lord Baratheon’s eyes. 

“I came to offer you my protection,” he returned just as formally, “I know that you were always more than capable of looking after yourself, Arya but…”

“Why do you insist on calling me by a dead girls name, Gendry?” Arya snapped, returning to herself. 

A glimmer of hope entered the cerulean eyes before her once more. 

“It is who you are.” Gendry replied, capturing her hand once more, “Who is this Cat? Why do you parade as her?” 

“Why do you parade as Lord Baratheon?” Arya returned with ferocity, “I know you for what you really are, a bastard boy from Flea Bottom.” 

That quietened Gendry for a second. 

“It seems that we both have become different people in our time apart,” Gendry said quietly. 

Arya nodded, her anger draining from her body. 

“That we have,” she agreed with a sigh. 

“I have missed you Arya,” Gendry said quietly, coming even closer.

Arya closed in her eyes. 

“I know,” she replied, “As I have missed you in spite of the fact you choose to stay with a group of bastards over me.” 

Gendry smiled at her, reaching a hand forward to stroke her cheek. 

“If I hadn’t stayed with the brotherhood I would have never been able to offer you the protection of my name now.” 

“The protection of your name,” Arya said with a condescending laugh, “I assure you Cat keeps me safe enough and Needle ensures the rest.” 

Gendry nodded, still stroking her cheek. 

Arya allowed him to, it was a small comfort to her for some reason.

“Where were you, Arya?” he asked slowly, “I looked for you for hours after…” 

“I went to Braavos,” she replied, unable to stop the truth from bubbling forth, “I went and learnt to protect myself.” 

Gendry nodded, a proud glint shining from his eyes. 

“Good,” he said, leaning forward so close that Arya could feel his breath on her lips. 

She shivered. 

“I would still have you stay with us at Storm’s End for a time, my lady,” Gendry said, “You can stay as Cat but stay you will, at least for a week. We have lost time to recover and plans to be made for your safe journey to the North or wherever you may choose to go... if you want to go….”

“I must go,” she said, “to avenge my family…” 

“Then you will have the power of Storm’s End at your back if you choose it,” Gendry promised, “You’ll have me and your back if you want it…” 

Arya looked up at Gendry, a confused frown wrinkling her brow. 

“Why?” she asked. 

Gendry shook his head in mirth. 

“Arya, we travelled together for months. You protected me so many times. You must know I love you,” Gendry said, bringing his hand to cup her entire cheek, “I will protect you to my last day…” 

He leant forward and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, not quite touching her lips. She felt the meek kiss to the very core of her bones. It reverberated within her.

However soon, Gendry was once more an arm length away from her, his entire face soft. 

“Now come back to the castle and we will exchange stories, I would like to hear yours…” 

Arya didn’t mean to but she felt herself nodding her head as she let herself be guided out of the Godswood, gathered up by Gendry’s protective arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! Let me know if you did!


	3. You'll Be Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To the prompt "You'll Be Back" !

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiiiiii! Its been a while! I found the prompt "You'll be back" a hard one to write! 
> 
> Originally I had written a WW1 love story but it was 30 pages long and no where near finished so I figure I will finish it in due course and upload it separately or at the end of this completely series! 
> 
> Hope you like this little one! To me, its kind of trash but fluffy, shipper trash! Let me know if you like!

Gendry woke up one particular morning, not quite knowing what the day ahead had planned for him but sensing something important was going to happen. Call it intuition or call it madness, he felt something coming deep in his bones.

 

He got out of bed cautiously that day, moving carefully in an effort not to wake up the woman lying next to him. Jeyne, that was her name. She was a persistent one he would give her that. It was really starting to annoy him that she persisted in sleeping over.

 

He made coffee and fiddled with the radio until it was loud enough for him to hear without waking up anyone else in his apartment. He was meticulous in making his breakfast, a juice filled with his daily intake of vegetables and some fruits.

 

He did what he did every morning, just the same as he did it every morning, just so he wouldn’t think about _her_.

 

She had been gone seven months at this point. He could barely even fathom why he was still thinking of her all the time, wondering how she was. Where she was. There was no sign of her return, no whiff of her presence being around him any longer.

 

Arya was just gone without a trace and he was left to deal with the after effects of her presence.

 

He was the one who had gone two months without washing his sheets, just so her scent would linger even longer. He was the one who had continued to buy that expensive sourdough bread she liked, just in case one day she walked through the door, wanting some avocado smashed on top of it. He was the one who was sleeping with every girl who would have him, just so he did not have to spend his nights thinking about her, dreaming about her endlessly, seeing her face in every angle of the dark night.

 

“Did you want some help with all that?” Jeyne’s voice called, drawing a memory from the recesses of his mind.

 

_“Did you want some help with all that?” Arya asked with a laugh, “I can’t cook for shit but for you, I might try.”_

_“I must say I am very flattered you even just offer,” Gendry said quietly with a teasing smile, as he continued to chop vegetables._

_“What can I say, you bring out a nice side to me Gendry Water,” Arya said, stealing a slice of cucumber, munching away at it._

“Gendry, I said did you want any help with breakfast?” Jeyne’s voice broke through his thoughts.

 

Gendry shook his head, looking up at her.

 

“Its fine,” he said curtly, feeling bad with seconds of his answer as he watched Jeyne deflate, “Did you want to stay for breakfast?”

 

Jeyne seemed to perk up a bit at that, smiling gratefully at him.

 

“I would but I actually have an early staff meeting at the hotel, I can’t be late. Sunday is our busiest day, you know.”

 

Gendry felt relieved, nodding his understanding with another curt smile.

 

“Of course,” he said.

 

Jeyne smiled, leaning across the bench between them to place a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

 

“Thanks for a great night,” she purred, “On again for tonight. Maybe we could get dinner first, or see a movie?”

 

Gendry didn’t want to shut down her optimism out of kindness. He should never have played with the fire that was Jeyne’s heart. He knew she had always liked him and yet here he was, using her as one of his rebound girls. Sometimes he hated himself.

 

“Maybe,” he said distractedly, “It depends how some work I have to do goes. I’ll let you know, I’ll text you?”

 

Jeyne nodded before turning around, her hips swaying attractively as she walked back to his bedroom to collect her clothes.

 

However her hips were not what pulled Gendry’s attention rather it was the white shirt. His white shirt although that was not what he remembered it as. It was hers, her favourite one to wear when she didn’t have any clothes to wear in the morning.

 

_“You always go for this particularly shirt,” Gendry said as he pressed kisses down the column of Arya’s throat, his fingers undoing it’s buttons as he went, “Have you ever noticed that?”_

_Arya let out a throaty laugh, nodding._

_“What can I say, its comfortable and you wear it so often, it smells like you,” she said in a breathy voice, “It helps me through the long hours when you aren’t at home to entertain me…”_

_Gendry had laughed at that, feeling Arya’s chest move slightly as she laughed with him. She made him feel so warm when she said things like that. It made him feel like they were a normal, happy couple, living a boring but loving life._

“So I’ll see you later,” Jeyne called from the door as she straightened the collar of her shirt.

 

Gendry nodded distractedly, barely paying attention to her until the door slammed shut.

 

_Gendry wasn’t a talker, let alone a beggar but today neither of those things were true. Today he was prepared to say whatever he had to._

_“Arya, come on you don’t need to leave,” Gendry beseeched as Arya opened the front door of their apartment, “We can do what you need to together, you don’t have to leave. Please, you can’t leave… I don’t want you to go…”_

_There were tears streaming down Arya’s face as she looked at him, a look of longing filling her features._

_She didn’t really want to go, Gendry was sure of it. He just didn’t know how to convince her that she shouldn’t go. Gods knew to forbid Arya anything was to make it her heart’s sole desire._

_“I have to leave, Gendry,” she whispered, her teary eyes taking him in, “I have some things I have to do. A few last things that need to be done and then I’ll be back.”_

_“You’ll be back,” Gendry repeated, almost like a prayer._

_“I’ll be back.”_

He had let her go without another word. He had believed her words. She would come back to him. He was sure. He had to be, or he didn’t know what would happen to him.

 

At first he had waited for her, completely devoted to her memory, to her everything. She had been the spark of his every thought. The rhythm by which his adoring heart beat. He was so in love with her, with her memory, that he had barely any other room for anything else to have a place in his mind or in his heart.

 

However slowly that devotion had waned and he had gotten angry. He had thrown things, broke everything in sight. She had left him, alone and hurt and he was pissed. He had wanted to hurt her but had settled for hurting himself with a destructive outlook and rash, unprecedented actions.

 

Then after a few more months, he had gotten to his last stage. He had finished off the stages of grief, reaching an unsteady acceptance and he had moved on to a certain extent.

 

He still hoped for her knock but didn’t run to the door in joy every time he heard a knock sound. It was an improvement, or so he told himself.

 

Gendry breathed in and out, slowly and peacefully. He was proud of his progress, proud that he could still feel the anger boiling deep in his gut, itching to get out, to hurt something, anything, yet repress it so thoroughly.

 

Gendry carefully placed his breakfast on his coffee table, switching on the television in an attempt to distract himself from his thoughts.

 

At first, the TV was just a source of mindless background noise as he stewed in his anger but soon he focused on it, watching the morning news, learning all the horrible things in the world that made him infinitely more grateful.

 

However something caught his eye that day.

 

A story about the death of Cersei Lannister. Wife of Robert Baratheon. One of the primary clogs in the workings and dealings of the notorious Lannister crime family.

 

Gendry narrowed his eyes as he listened.

 

The reporter kept talking but Gendry barely heard him as he chewed slowly on his food.

 

He knew that name as well as he knew his own.

 

That woman, she had bought misery to so many people, Arya and himself included. She had so many enemies, so there were so many people who would have wanted the opportunity to finally off her like she had down to so many others.

 

Still his heart held some hope that perhaps it was Arya who had pushed the dagger into her. Maybe then all this absentee madness would be at its end and she would come back to him.

A couple of hours later, Gendry felt like he was waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen.

 

“Why would she come back?” he silently asked himself, “What reason could she possibly have to come here? Out of all the places she could go, I doubt that she would come here.”

 

Because she loves you, a small niggling of hope said in the back of his mind said to him, because she misses you as much as you miss her, because she said it, said she would be back.

 

The hours continued to pass and Gendry found ways to distract himself well into Sunday afternoon.

 

A knock sounded at the door of his apartment.

 

Gendry jolted, a shock of longing, hope and general disbelief throwing itself through his system.

 

Gendry stood, stuck still for a moment. He wanted to run to the door to throw it open and see Arya just as beautiful and wild as the last time he had seen her. However part of him was preparing, preparing to be utterly disappointed if he opened the door and it was just Hot Pie or that weird hippy priest that sometimes came to visit him.

 

Slowly he walked to the door, each of his paces dragging as he walked.

 

Perhaps he wanted to stay in that moment, in this moment where he could still imagine that it really was Arya at the door.

 

The doorknob was cold and heavy in his hand as he twisted it.

 

_“Who are you?” Gendry asked the girl at his door._

_She looked him up and down, her body trembling as she panted for breath._

_“My name is Arry… Arya, Arya Stark,” she had stuttered, “I have to hide… please let me in. We know each other, from when were children. We meet many years ago…”_

_Gendry narrowed his eyes at her before a spark of recognition went through him._

_“Arry,” he said in wonder, “From the orphanage, the one who ran away…”_

_The girl nodded, biting her lip as she tossed her eyes over her shoulder in trepidation._

_“Come in,” he had said, ushering her in._

The face that greeted him now was the same one that he had seen all those years ago, albeit with honey blonde hair and a seemingly rounder face.

 

“Arya,” he breathed.

 

Arya smiled.

 

“You knew I was coming home today, didn’t you?” she asked with a wane smile.

 

Gendry didn’t say a thing, didn’t even nod. He just drank her in, his eyes tracing over her like a man dying of thirst as he walked through a barren desert.

 

She looked good, healthy. Her face was slightly rounder and a bit flushed in what he hoped was happiness. She looked like she had been walking through the snow, which knowing London in the mid-winter, she probably had been.

 

She was Arya and she was standing in front of him, examining him just as carefully as he was examining her.

 

“Hi,” she said, as if unsure what else to say, “Are you going to let me inside?”

 

Gendry nodded wordlessly, stepping aside.

 

“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” she observed softly.

 

Still Gendry said nothing, closing the door softly before turning around to see Arya looking around with a satisfied expression.

 

She turned to him and their eyes met.

 

“You look like …”

 

“Where have you been Arya?” Gendry spoke for the first time, cutting her off with little to no regard, “It’s been months…”

 

“I told you I would come back,” Arya reminded him with a smile as she placed her small bag next to the couch, “And I always was coming back to you… I had a time limit of sorts… I was coming back to you, it was just taking more time than I expected…”

 

Gendry frowned.

 

“Time limit? Arya what’s going on? You’re not making sense.”

 

Arya sighed before huffing her coat off her shoulders and throwing it down on the couch.

 

Gendry felt as though the air was knocked right out of him as he stared at her. After a couple of seconds of shocked silence, he let out a sigh, pinching his nose between his fingers as he took a deep, controlled breath in.

 

“You’re pregnant,” he said, his voice full of restrained anger as his mind’s eye continued to see her stomach, fiercely swollen.

 

“Almost ready to pop,” Arya replied coolly with a nod.

 

Gendry felt like he was choking.

 

“Perhaps you should sit down,” Arya suggested, “I know I want to…”

 

“Arya what the hell is going on?” Gendry shouted suddenly, in no mood for such games.

 

Arya sighed, her breath heavy before she began talking so softly, he had to walk closer to her just to hear.

 

“I knew I was pregnant before I left,” she said, “just under three months along. I knew you would never let me do what I wanted if you knew I was pregnant so I made the decision not to tell you… then I could get what I wanted done.”

 

Gendry let out a strangled noise. He wanted to shake her, kill her but somehow all he could manage was that awful sound from the bottom of his throat.

 

He somehow found his way over to the couch, collapsing on it.

 

“You know my list, there was only one name left on it.”

 

Gendry looked up at her, his eyes disbelieving.

 

“You stayed away all these months just for the second of opportunity to take Cersei Lannister out,” he said scornfully, “How dare you? How could you have been so selfish? You could have been hurt… the baby could have been hurt…”

 

Arya had the good grace to look somewhat repentant as Gendry admonished her.

 

“That wasn’t all,” she said careful, “I know I put us both in a danger but I did have everything under careful control and… that wasn’t all. Before I left, I didn’t… I didn’t know if I wanted to have a baby, Gendry. I’m a killer, not a mother. I knew if I was here, if I told you I was pregnant, that you would fall in love with it and it would break your heart if I decided that parenthood, motherhood, a child, was not for me.”

 

Again Gendry just breathed in and out, in and out.

 

“So I went off to think,” Arya continued, “And while I away, I finished off my list…. If I was going to have this baby, I wasn’t bringing into a world like this… a world were these fuckers were alive and killing innocents.”

 

Gendry stared at her, watched as her hand stroked her swollen stomach in a brief moment of tenderness. That was so … Arya. So Arya. Thoughtlessly ruthless yet also made perfect logical sense. Gendry could barely think. He didn’t know how to feel. Should he feel angry, sad or maybe even stupid?

 

All Gendry knew was that a part of him couldn’t feel any of those emotions, as a big part of him felt relieved to see Arya, to be within touching distance of her.

 

“Arya,” he breathed, his eyes tracing over ever inch of her, taking her in completely, “So it was you that killed Cersei Lannister?”

 

Arya nodded listlessly.

 

“And the Mountain but his death probably wasn’t reported. No one cares when a hitman dies, especially in such an uneventful way. I couldn’t take any risks being in my current state, the Mountain could fight back in a way the others couldn’t. So I organised it so that he was killed from afar. Unfortunately poison is such an anti-climatic and uninteresting death for a so-called ‘warrior’. ”

 

Gendry rolled his eyes.

 

“What of Ilyn Payne?” he asked suspiciously.

 

“Dead from throat cancer almost a year ago,” Arya said, her face forming a smug smile, “I thought it was rather ironic considering his actions in my own father’s death.”

 

“Walder Frey? Meryn Trant?”

 

Arya seemed slightly surprised that he remembered her damned list so well but answered nonetheless.

 

“I killed them both before we reunited, why do you think I was on the run when I knocked on your front door?”

 

Gendry nodded in understanding.

 

Understanding, he thought in disgust.

 

He would never understand how he got to this point, how he could sit here talking about murder so uncaringly. How he could be so understanding of someone turning to murder as a form of latent justice? How he could talk about the blood of Arya’s hands with only concern for her, the murderer, rather than any of her victims.

 

Arya openly called herself a killer. She had killed too many not to be considered a killer. However, she had never just been some killer to him. She was Arya, his Arya, and she always would be.

 

“So after all of that, what have you decided?” Gendry asked, looking at her with raised brows.

 

Arya looked at him closely.

 

“Have you decided to have the child or not?” Gendry clarified despite knowing that they both knew what he had been talking about.

 

“I’m still pregnant aren’t I? Though not for long I fear…”

 

“So you want to have this baby?” Gendry asked her.

 

“I came back because I love you and I want us to have this baby,” she asserted.

 

Gendry released a breath that he didn’t even know he was holding. His entire demeanour instantly relaxed as soon as she spoke. He wasn’t losing her. In fact it was rather the opposite, Arya was staying with him and he was gaining another person, their child.

 

“I’m still so angry with you Arya but I’m also so glad you’re back.”

 

Arya’s answering smile was dazzling. Just like their daughter’s eyes when she was born a week and a half later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let a hoe know what u thought! 
> 
> Love and light! xxx


	4. Whisper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt 'Whisper'!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a sucker for anything Gendry and Arya involving a pregnancy so here is a little one-shot for the prompt 'Whisper! 
> 
> I hope you like it, it was inspired partially by the vague whispers of a memories of something I once read and partially by the film Juno (if you haven't seen that, reevaluate your life and watch it) ! However I cannot read the name of the story or the author to credit them with any inspiration unfortunately! 
> 
> Hope you like! (its short for me but I figured that these 7 prompt things don't have to be long!) xxx

For almost sixteen hours, Arya had been in a haze. Her entire recollection of that time was a complete blur of pain and exhaustion. 

She had felt people floating around her as she had screamed, seen the faces of her parents, Sansa and even Bran, supported by a wheelchair, coming in and out of her vision.

However now, that was all a forgotten thought. Arya sat still for the first time in all those hours, her eyes no longer wanting to flutter closed as she stared, utterly and completely entranced by the small thing that they had pressed her into her arms. She couldn’t look away from the little face, the little girl that only ceased her crying when Arya held her in her arms. 

Arya has stared at her, trying to memorise every aspect of her face, every single angle, crease and fluttering of those little eyelashes. 

For a second her eyes even opened and Arya caught a glimpse of eyes that were the deep blue of her fathers. 

Love was not a foreign emotion to Arya but this love was. She felt like she could happily spend the rest of her days gazing down at this child, stroking her bald little head or running her finger over the rim of her elf like little ears. 

But too soon she was in a plastic box being wheeled off towards the nursery. Arya could hear crying as they took her away. She didn’t know if it was her crying or the baby's. 

The nursery would be where she would wait for them. For her parents to come and pick her up, the parents Arya had chosen with her own parents to adopt her daughter. 

Nice girls didn’t have children out of wedlock, that’s what her mother had been saying her since they had found out about the baby, nice girls swept any discretions like this under the rug, out of sight forever. 

Nurses raced in and out of the room for the next couple of hours while Arya slept, utterly exhausted from the hours of labour that she had just endured. 

Through the whole ordeal she had wished for so many, called out for so many. She had called out for her father, for Jon, even him… everyone that wasn't with her. But all she could remember was her mother in the room, wiping the sweat off her irresponsible daughter’s brow. 

Arya’s eyes were still closed when she heard it. She still felt half drugged, the epidural still in her system making her untrusting what she thought she heard. However the whisper of music in the air around her could not be ignored. It was real, she knew it. 

Arya tried to open her eyes but found it so tiring; she rested again for a moment. Within a few minutes she managed to open her eyes, although they fought the urge to droop shut the entire time they were open. 

The figure next to her bed was not a member of her family like she had expected, nor was it Jon, who was due back from service for a visit, like she had hoped in her heart of hearts.

Rather a dark head was looking down at the guitar he was strumming, humming an unfamiliar tune. 

Arya’s fingers flickered towards him and Gendry’s head quickly snapped upwards to look at her. 

He quickly put the guitar down before looking up at her, his eyes troubled. 

“Sansa rang me, told me you went into labour,” he said, answering her unasked question. 

Arya nodded, barely lifting her head as her body began to gradually wake up.

“You came?” Arya rasped. 

Gendry looked at her, a whisper of a scowl on his face. 

“Of course I came Arya,” he said, carefully taking her hand, “I have been here the whole time.” 

Arya swallowed the happiness that bubbled when she heard that. 

“Have you seen her?” she croaked out.

Gendry looked down, his eyes full of pain mirroring Arya's own, before looking back up at her. 

“I don’t want to see her if she’s not going to be mine,” he said quietly, “It would be too painful…” 

Arya sighed, allowing her eyes to close as she let out a whimper. 

She felt Gendry stroke her hair, calming her even more with every small movement. 

“Sleep Arya…” 

Arya burrowed further back into the bed, relaxing completely as she was lulled back into sleep. The hum of music, no louder than a whisper, began again, pushing her deeper in the recesses of her mind. 

She recognised the song he was playing this time, but was too tired to think of its name. 

She fought to keep her eyes open but the next time they opened Gendry was asleep next to her and they were no longer alone. A dark figure stood by the window, his eyes faraway. 

“Jon…” Arya whispered, thinking of the impossibility that Jon was in the same room as her. 

The man turned away from the window he had been staring out of, coming forward immediately. 

“Hello little sister,” he whispered.

“Jon,” Arya breathed in joy, “Its really you, you’re really here…” 

“Yes well they give you leave when you get told by your father that your seventeen year old sister went into labour…” 

Arya let out a raspy laugh. 

“I missed you so much…” she said quietly. 

Jon’s eyes were so loving as they stared at her. 

“Me too, little sister, you cannot imagine how much I missed you.” 

Jon smiled fondly, his eyes dropping to behind her. 

“Although I decide now that I did not miss him,” Jon said with a tight look at his best friend, “I’m gone not even eleven months and you two manage to have a baby together…” 

Arya let out a weak laugh. 

“I missed you so much brother,” she said. 

Jon nodded gently, stroking Arya’s cheek lovingly. 

“You know I always knew you two wanted each other,” he said suddenly, “I just didn’t realise how much…” 

Arya was quiet. 

“Now you have had a baby, a daughter together and you’re still separated by miles,” he finished. 

Arya frowned but didn’t contradict her brother. 

“Tell him how you feel Arya,” Jon said, “You had to give your daughter up today, don’t lose Gendry too.” 

Jon stayed for a while before fading out of Arya’s visage as her eyes drooped once more, wanting more than anything to sleep. 

However his words about Gendry circled around and around in her head, even as she slept for what only felt like a couple of minutes once she opened her eyes again, noting that Gendry was still next to her. 

Arya turned her head, watching Gendry for a second, reaching out to touch the thick black waves that covered his head. 

She hadn’t seen him this close in months. The last time she had even touched his hair, she had been panting as he thrust even deeper inside her, curling her fingers deeper into his hair, yanking it. That had been months ago, nine to be exact. 

When Sansa had insisted she tell him she was pregnant two months later, she hadn’t been close enough to him to touch his hair. She would never forget the blank look that had crossed his face when she had told him. 

She couldn’t blame him; they had only fucked once, a culmination of all the years of sexual tension, in the back seat of his car right after Jon had left suddenly without saying goodbye to either of them. Both their emotions had been running high and they hadn’t been thinking. 

He had left it all up to her. Saying nothing as he had looked down at her with uncertainty in his eyes. She had only been only 16 after all and he only 19, what else could he do? 

It had been so awkward in the months after him finding out. So unsure. 

She had planned to get rid of the child. There were people who did that secretly, you just had to look hard enough but she had been unable to go through with it. Gendry had picked her up from the clinic that time, his eyes quiet and understanding as he drove her home. 

The next time she had seen him, her stomach had ballooned out and he couldn’t take his eyes off it. They had spent more time together after that, floating around each other awkwardly but with a magnetic energy drifting between them, always pulling them closer together. He had even felt the baby kick once. Arya could see the delight in his eyes when he had, although he quickly squashed it. 

Now here he was. He had come to the hospital, played his guitar for her in an act of comfort as she drifted off to sleep. 

Arya was so deep in thought, she barely heard Gendry whisper her name.

When she did, her eyes flew to look at him, taking in his mussed hair and red-rimmed eyes. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you myself,” Arya blurted out suddenly, “I’m so glad you’re here….”

“You are?” Gendry asked, his voice wavering with uncertainty.

“You’re my best friend,” Arya whispered, “I think Jon and I will have to fight for custody of you one day.”

A ghost of a chuckle came from Gendry’s lips but nothing more. Arya could tell that he wasn’t that happy with that answer. Neither was she anymore.

“He said something when he was in here,” Arya said before clarifying, “Jon was here not long ago.” 

Gendry raised in his eyebrows in interest. 

“What was it?” he asked pensively. 

“Just…” Arya trailed off, not knowing how to communicate the way Jon had told her she needed to. 

Could she be honest? Would she be able to tell him what she really wanted? It seemed to be an impossible task right now. Perhaps it was just something that she needed to ease into. 

So Arya changed the subject to something more comfortable for them.

“You brought your guitar?” she probed, her eyes flickering to the instrument, propped up behind him. 

“Yeah,” Gendry said, “I thought you might like to hear something. It was stupid…” 

“No,” Arya said. “It wasn't stupid at all. I thought it was a dream, a perfect one, you playing to me as I fell asleep… ”

She stretched her hand out to him. 

“No that happened, it was real,” Gendry said quietly, taking her hand without a second thought.

“Will you stay with me?” she asked as she felt the pressure of his hand in hers, “For a little while? Please? ”

Gendry’s fingers tangled more tightly with hers. 

“Your father wouldn't be thrilled to see that,” Gendry warned, looking her at her with wise eyes. 

Arya shrugged. 

“I just had your daughter,” she said dryly, “I’m sure my father’s fears have long been realized.” 

Arya began to shift in the hospital bed to make room for him, pulling him down.

It had never been this calm between them before. 

Arya and Gendry had been a frenzy of angst and misplaced anger from the beginning. But for the first time, they just lay together, contemplative, talking only in whispers.

“You truly didn’t see her?” Arya asked after awhile. 

“No,” Gendry said. “I couldn’t do that to myself. It didn’t seem…”

“I understand,” Arya said as he trailed off, “I completely understand. It would be right for either of us...” 

Her black painted nails curled tightly around his, threading their hands together in mutual pain.

“This is right Arya, you know that don't you?” he whispered, gesturing to their hands. 

Arya nodded, burrowing her head into his shoulder, and for once it felt like they were on the same page as they breathed together. 

“She was so beautiful,” she whispered, her voice full of pain.

“Just like her mother then,” Gendry whispered back, stroking her hair gently.

Arya couldn’t even bring herself to smile gratefully. All she was thinking of was a pair of sleepy blue so similar to Gendry’s on a face so small and angelic. 

“I wanted her when I first saw her,” she whispered to him suddenly, “It was suddenly very real to me. That she was mine. Ours.”

Gendry paused, his head nuzzling into Arya’s head. Arya knew he was listening. He always had been a better listener. 

“When she was inside me, it was easier to put her at a distance, to pretend that her movements, her kicks, were nothing but a fantasy. But when I first held her I knew I would never go a day without imagining her face, thinking what she was doing, if she was happy,” she continued, tears beginning to slide down her cheeks, “I want her.” 

Arya felt Gendry shift more onto his back, pulling her even closer to him. Her face was tucked into his neck and she couldn’t see Gendry’s face, couldn’t gather any idea of what he was thinking right now, but she knew he was thinking. She could feel it. 

Arya sighed, pulling back to look up him. 

He was thinking.

He always did have a stupid thinking face, Arya thought fondly, I wonder if she will have that same stupid face one day... 

Arya sighed deeply again, her head falling back into his shoulder. 

“You want to her?” Gendry whispered. 

Arya nodded. 

“Let’s get her back then…” 

Gendry’s voice was but a whisper yet Arya heard it like a shout, she was getting her daughter back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments are like crack for me and I'm happily addicted, PLEASE comments with any feedback! xxxxx


	5. Laughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt 'Laughter' !

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with this and reading! If you haven't read the chapter before this, which is called Whisper', then you should because this is a continuation of that! 
> 
> Let me know what you thought and have a great day, great week, great month!!! Lots of love and light to you all!

Big blue eyes stared up at Arya. Round, full of innocence and joy as she made yet another face of contorted stupidity. 

A small burst of laughter ensued, high pitched and full of delight. 

Arya laughed in response full of happiness as she leant forward to press a kiss to Lya’s little button nose. 

It was funny what a baby could make a person do. 

Their scrunched up little faces could make even the hardest of hearts melt their icy exterior. They could make everyone and anyone act like a complete idiot without a second thought, all for even the smallest trill of laughter. 

One little glance and a person thawed, turning themselves into anything that they could think of, just to hear even a small giggle emerge from those fat, little lips. 

Arya knew that she did what she was doing now often, acting silly to inspire a sweet laugh, and she had seen Gendry do it a thousand times over. Lya seemed to inspire those sort of things out of the both of them, in the same way she had inspired so much else in her short life. 

She had inspired happiness and laughter in all of them. 

Arya had seen it in the way that her brother, her beloved Jon, had been when he had first held Lya, holding his niece so delicately, like she could break in his arms at any second. Like a single cry would demoralize him, as much as a single laugh would lift him up to the level of a God. 

Arya had seen it in the way her father had cried as he had cradled his daughter’s baby for the first time, the granddaughter that he had not expected to have the opportunity to love. 

Lya had even inspired Arya’s mother, the stone-hearted woman herself, to something other than that blank logic that she had originally applied to Arya’s pregnancy and subsequent situation.

Her mother’s eyes had softened a tiny bit as she held the granddaughter she had been so against keeping tight against her chest, rocking her so gently it was barely noticeable. 

Arya herself had certainly melted as soon as they had put her on her chest, tears still streaming down her face from the pain of childbirth. 

Gendry had told her that he got more joy that he had ever expected to have in his life from the both of them. 

More had happened after that but Arya didn’t want to dwell on any of that. 

She had her daughter back, she had Gendry and she was happy that’s all she wanted to think about right now. 

Arya bent down pressing yet another kiss to Lya’s cheek. And another, and another. She would never stop kissing those fat, little cheeks. So chubby, she loved the feel of them pressed against her when she fed her. Loved when Gendry would carry Lya from her crib to Arya most mornings, pressing her little warm body to Arya’s chest, before he left for school or work. 

Sometimes he would even climb in with them, pulling both of them against him and into their own little world. 

Her parents still weren’t happy that they shared a bed, or a house for that matter but Arya had told them that they would have to learn to live with it. Gendry and her were were happy and right now that was all she chose to concern herself with. 

Arya would take hearing Lya’s laughter for the rest of her days over worrying about her mother’s pompous concerns of what people thought.

After all, Lya’s laughter was something precious. Not rare but precious all the same. Each time anyone heard a trill of it, it was like the world stopped as they focused on the child making the delightful sound. 

Arya felt hands thread around her waist as her mind moved. Her entire body was set alight by Gendry’s warmth. Arya basked in it. It had taken them too long to get to this place and she was damned well going to enjoy being in it now that they were in it together. 

For a second they didn’t speak, both starring down at the magical thing that they had created in the back of a car in a flurry of eager moans and deep yearnings.

“Someone’s happy,” Gendry breathed into her ear after a couple of moments. 

Arya smiled, her body feeling a rush of something so happy she could barely find an adequate word for it. 

“Since the moment we got her back,” Arya replied with a contented sigh, “You’re home early.” 

“Lecturer let us go early and Robert said I didn’t need to come in,” Gendry replied, “Its excellent, I can spend the rest of the day with my girls.” 

Arya had never been one to grow warm at the words of a boy. Never been one to feel so utterly contented at words that could be utterly meaningless. Yet she did. She felt warm, she felt contented and she felt happy, happier than she could ever remember feeling. 

“Good,” she said with a warm smile and a quirked eyebrow, “Then you can change Lya said when she needs it.” 

Gendry laughed warmly, before picking Lya up easily and looking at her with dancing eyes. 

“I would be more than happy to,” he said, “Anything for Lya… isn’t that right? It is isn’t it.” 

Lya responded with giggles, her happy eyes focusing on her father for as long as the eyes of a baby of four months could. 

Gendry placed her down, instantly moving to blow bubbles into her tummy. Lya screeched with laughter, her little fat roll jiggling back and forth with the noise. 

Arya’s eyes wanted to water and they almost did as she reached out her hand, pushing her fingers through Gendry’s thick almost to check he was real. She almost missed having this, this perfectly imperfect thing. 

In another life her daughter would not have been her daughter and she would have found herself alone without Lya, without Gendry even. Perhaps she would have coped in that world, or maybe she would have fallen apart but again Arya didn’t care to dwell on such things. They were morbid thoughts that had no place in this happy moment. 

No matter the trials and challenges of having a baby so young, she had chosen correctly, that was what truly mattered and Arya couldn’t deny that the laughter was worth it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how much I appreciate feedback (even if it is criticism) so let me know, down below!! (rhymed... I love rhyming)


	6. Command

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya is the daughter of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. The last Baratheon comes to offer his fealty to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with this and want to finish these dribbles! The next chapter is already done, will post it if you want to read it! Let me know! I like this idea, I might expand on it more in the future, tell me if that is something you would want as well!
> 
> Arya is the daughter of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. The last Baratheon comes to offer his fealty to her.

When a boy had come running to the inner chambers of the Queen’s rooms, his eyes wide and half crazed, they had all stopped to listen.

“There are men at the gates, demanding to see the Princess,” he had struggled out in High Valyian, his breath catching the better of him for a moment, “They claim to come to serve her, hundreds of them... their leader wants to talk to her…”

Arya had frowned, her eyes instantly searching to meet Dany’s, whose face mirrored her own frown. 

“Who are they?” Aegon demanded, looking annoyed. 

“They don’t know, your highness, only that they wish to see the Princess Arya,” the boy said, distressed. 

Dany thanked the boy quickly before her eyes drew up once more to meet Arya’s. 

“Do you know anything about this?” she asked. 

Arya shook her head before a thoughtful expression on her face.

“Then you should stay within the castle walls,” Aegon said carelessly, his body relaxed as his gaze slithered over her, “We can send the Unsullied to deal with…” 

“No,” Arya interrupted immediately, “I will go and meet with them.” 

Dany’s face was touched with concern but Aegon showed only indignant rage at being undermined. 

“You cannot…” 

“I can and I will,” Arya bit back, “You would do well to remember how I react to be forbidden things… I am not at your disposal to be order about. We are equals brother…” 

Aegon continued to glare at Arya while she stared fiercely back.

“Perhaps I can offer a compromise,” Dany said, looking carefully between them, weary of their fierce fighting, “Perhaps I could accompany you Arya, then we can assure your protection with my guard.”

Arya did not take her eyes of her brother, but after a minute she nodded. 

The two of them walked in silence. Arya had the distinct impression that her aunt was studying her in some way. 

Although she had only known Dany a little while, she felt almost too comfortable with her. The warmth and kindness that the Queen emanated was only amplified by the sisterly love that she had offered Arya. It was the type of love that Arya had always craved from her half-sister, Sansa. 

Sansa however had been too much her mother’s daughter, too proud to love a bastard half-sister in the same way she had loved her true born brothers. Dany did not mind that Arya’s mother was Lyanna Stark. She did not mind that Arya had been born between two people who had not recited vows to each other in front of an old crooked man wearing a dress. She only cared that Arya was Rhaegar’s blood, and by extension her own. 

Aegon on the other hand minded quite a lot that Arya was the daughter of the woman who had ripped apart his family. His entire demeanour toward Arya leant toward the ephemeral. Sometimes he was like Jon or Robb had been, her beloved brothers (for true brothers they would always be). Like he had been when they had first met and he had taken her into his arms like he had been missing her his entire life. Yet sometimes he was awful, bloated with rage and indigence, angry at his father, at Lyanna, at the spawn that their brief union had brought into the world. 

“He is just concerned for you,” Dany said soothingly.

Arya gave her a sharp look. 

“He’s truly intolerable sometimes,” she said. 

Dany smiled sadly. 

“He’s your brother.”

The gates were crowded like the boy had said. The Unsullied stood at their posts, blocking the men from entering the castle courtyard, their blank faces unmoved by the restless atmosphere until they saw their Queen. 

Arya’s gaze searched the throngs of men, not recognising one until a voice called her name. 

“Arya Snow! Lord of Light, you have grown to your mother’s likeness. Her beauty stands before me in a living, breathing ghost.” 

Arya’s eyebrows shot up as her gaze met that of Thoros of Myr, still dressed in those same ugly, red robes. 

“Thoros…” Arya said, staring at him. 

The red priest smiled before merely gesturing behind him. 

“Little Arya, I am so honoured that you recognised me, even at your newly elevated station…” 

The priest made a mocking bow, his entire voice full of satire. 

Arya did not smile. She did not laugh. Instead she glared, her gaze fierce and cutting. 

“Why did you summon me here?” she spat, her voice full of meaningful venom.

The priest did not startle at her scathing tone. He had probably expected it of her. He had been the one to feel the brunt of her anger when he had sold Gendry to the Red Witch. It had after all been his hands that had been given the gold. Arya looked at him with nothing but disgust and hatred. 

“I begged for your presence, my princess, as Lord Baratheon has requested an audience with you…” 

“Lord Baratheon?” Dany interrupted, her usually serene face twisting darkly.

Daenarys’ hatred for the Baratheons had not waned. She saw them as usurpers and nothing more. Arya however had known very few Baratheon’s. Joffrey had not truly been one in the end, so truly she had only known King Robert, and he had been nothing but a weak, harmless, fat, old drunk. 

“There are no Baratheon’s left,” Arya replied in an emotionless voice, “Both Stannis and Renly are long dead…”

“And yet the legacy of their house lives on through King Robert’s eldest son.” 

Dany drew in a harsh breath. 

Arya glanced at her. Her beautiful face was masked with ugly, pulsing rage. However Arya was curious. Who was King Robert’s son? Why did he want to meet with her? Between her brother and her aunt, she was not the most significant Targaryen, in fact if anything she was quite the opposite. Still she let her curiosity take ahold. 

“Lead me to him.”

Arya heard Dany’s sharp intake of breath. She turned to her beloved aunt. 

“Stay here, I will return soon.” 

Daenarys’ opened to her mouth to argue but Arya interrupted her. 

“Please.”

It took a pause but eventually she nodded, her jaw locked in anger, but she had agreed and Arya followed the red priest towards the tents set up behind them without another thought. 

The tent that they enter was large and dressed in dark yellow and black. 

Baratheon’s colours, for a Baratheon bastard, Arya thought dryly, two bastards who have come up in the world. 

A sardonic smile sat on Arya’s lips as she examined the space, her eyes immediately drawn to a most beautifully crafted rapier sitting expectantly on the table. She moved closer immediately. It was exquisite work and Arya couldn’t help but press her hands to its blade, tracing its twists and turns gently. 

“When we all heard tell of a new Targaryen Princess, fierce on her green dragon, I could barely believe my ears,” a voice said, “Yet here I am. With her familiar form before me, a dragon princess with a dragon...”

Arya’s eyes closed unwillingly as her hand remained firmly on the beautifully crafted sword in front of her. 

That voice it was so familiar; its deep quality so tantalising and comforting. 

“A dragon, an new princess fighting alongside her half-brother and aunt for the iron throne… The Targaryen’s returned to contest for their claim to the iron throne. But then, you always were very unpredictable, weren’t you Lady Snow?” 

With that, Arya spun around, her hands coming to rest on the wall of a chest that was right in front of her. 

“Do not call me my lady, you stupid man,” she breathed, looking up at Gendry with blinding eyes filled with joy. 

Gendry smiled, a note of sadness in his face as he gazed down at her. 

“Princess then?” 

Arya shook her head, her lips beginning to curl upward. 

“Gendry…” 

Arya threw her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder. 

In a world full of foreign half-brothers, new aunts and dragons, Gendry was a safe harbour of familiarity and love. Arya felt his arms wrap around her waist after a couple of stunned seconds, a movement that still seemed nervous and extremely hesitant, even after all those months travelling together all those years ago.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered. 

Arya could felt Gendry playing with the ends of her hair as his arms remained around her waist. 

“I told you, I heard about it all, about… the Stark riding upon a dragon,” he breathed into her hair, his warm breath caused her neck to bloom with tingling goose bumps, “I wanted to come sooner, I would have but we hit a few road bumps getting here.” 

Arya wanted to ask where he had been, why he had left her, what bumps he had encountered on his way to her but none of that came out of her mouth. Instead she merely sighed, her lips parting in relief of this familiar man. 

“Its so good to see you,” Arya breathed, releasing all this pent up tension as she stood in his arms. 

“Ay, it is good to see you too m’lady. You are a sight for sore eyes.”

\- 

That night they feasted together with all of Arya’s new family. 

Dany was weary, but she trusted Arya’s assurances that Gendry was a friend to them all, becoming kinder and more welcoming as the night when on in spite of her initial trepidation. 

Aegon on the other hand was wilfully and deliberately rude as often as he could be. Arya could barely restrain herself from jumping across the table to scratch at him. 

Gendry however was truly perfect. He thanked Dany, speaking with her respectfully in a way that Arya thought might have softened her stony Aunt, and he rightfully ignored Aegon, following Arya’s own advice. 

He knelt before them, offered them the fealty of House Baratheon under the incredulous eyes of everyone watching, but Gendry only looked at her. He was not offering to support the Targaryen’s, he was offering to support her. There had not been an alliance between the two houses for years, only animosity, but now there was. She was responsible for it; everyone around them knew it. They all watched with expectant eyes, probably awaiting the announcement of a betrothal. 

Gendry and her didn’t help assuage such a expectation. He sat at her side the entire night; watching her, smiling with her, laughing with her. He made her feel electrified, like her whole body was warm and lusty without her permission. 

He lifted her hand to his lips and Arya could have sworn that something when through her like she had never felt before. His smile set her ablaze. His hand brushing against her made her squirm with something not unfamiliar. She wanted to stroke his hair back from his eyes whenever it fell lanky over his forehead. She wanted to press her lips to his jaw, his nose, his lips… she wanted to press her lips everywhere his skin would allow. 

His looks toward her betrayed him. Arya could feel that he felt the same thoughts that she internally voiced. She could tell he felt the same shiverings, the same urgings. She took his hand, stroked his fingers in a way that felt more sensual. 

She went to her chambers that night. Aegon had meaningfully escorted her to them, casting her stony looks. However he had left immediately, not staying in her chambers for long and leaving the unsullied to guard her. They could not stop her. She escaped her chambers through the window within minutes moved quietly towards him, letting her body lead her. 

When she knocked on his chambers, the door opened immediately like he had been standing at the door waiting for her. Their eyes met and she was in his arms with her lips on his within an instant. 

The door slipped closed behind them as Arya moved further into his chambers, and into his arms. 

-

In the week that followed, Arya slept every night in his chambers. She learnt his body as he learnt hers, melding themselves together in love. 

Strands of her dark hair were littered across Gendry’s bed, staining the white sheets. Most of it decorated the bed, as Arya did not us any pillow but Gendry’s bare chest. 

He often whispered to her how he love to watch her as she slept, her eyes closed in peace that was rare for her. He was beautiful, he told her. Arya didn’t quite believe him, Dany was beautiful, Sansa was beautiful. She was little Arya Snow and she had never been renowned for anything other than being underfoot. 

Arya, he would say, my demanding, tempestuous and wild lady.

She knew he was in love with her, had been as soon as they saw each other, and Arya knew she loved him too. 

A Targaryen and a Baratheon, how ironic was that? 

Her family certainly appreciated the irony. 

Daenarys knew about the relationship the next morning. She took one look at Arya that first morning, her hair mussed and a trail of badly powdered over love bites down her neck and Arya knew that her aunt just knew. She had not been happy that their greatest bargaining chip was less valuable now but she had never been certain of Arya’s maidenhead one way or another. Arya’s years alone in Braavos had cast the unerring stain of doubt on that. 

Aegon on the other hand gave no indication either way that he knew his sister was being ‘sullied’ every night by their Baratheon guest. He had in the past ordered to (like he seemed to think she could) to be chaste. Arya had never done well with orders. 

It wasn’t until a week later that Aegon brought up Gendry to her and Dany as they made their plans for traveling north to King’s Landing.

“We must kill him,” Aegon said with a shrug. 

Arya’s throat shook, vibrated with something deeper than anger or rage at her half-brothers impetuous words. Perhaps it was fear but nonetheless, the vibrations soon bubbled into words.

“We will not be killing him,” she thundered. 

“Why? Because you have decided you like the feeling of his tongue on your cunt, because you are fucking him despite my commands?” Aegon spat, “I think not. He must die. He is our enemy” 

Arya slammed her fist on the table in front of her so hard, a goblet of wine topped over the edge of it.

“He travelled all the way to Dorne… he came to our gates to join our cause…” Arya yelled, “Out of everyone here, Gendry is not our enemy.” 

Aegon’s eyebrows crawled up in anger and defiance. 

“Just who do you think is our enemy then, sister? If not the son of the ursuper that stole our grandfather’s throne, mine and our father’s birthright, then who is our enemy?” 

Arya glared, opening to mouth to retort only to be cut off by their aunt’s commanding voice.

“That’s enough,” Dany’s voice rang between them, “We already have enough enemies in the Lannisters without us crumbling in our own ranks.”

She turned to Aegon, her gazes irritated as she looked at her nephew. 

“Had you not considered how having a Baratheon, the last known Baratheon as well, in our ranks will help our campaign?” she hissed at her nephew, “The people will be appeased to see the alliance of two waring houses. Cersei will grow nervous to see her husband’s house supporting us, as will the other houses that support her. Or can you not see past your own selfish whims and reasons. He shall not be executed while I am Queen.” 

Aegon’s eyes grew blacker and he laughed cruelly and without any sort of humour. 

“So my sister chooses to protect her Baratheon lover over her family,” he spat, “How fitting for the daughter of Lyanna Stark…” 

Arya want to hit him, but she resisted. Either way her commands stood strong, and her Baratheon lived to spend another night in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Means the world to me!


	7. I know him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 7 - I know him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Police undercover AU

Arya knew pain; she understood it. If she were honest Arya had a healthy respect for pain. It was something she had inflicted and it was something she had felt. This wasn’t the first time she had been tortured and it probably wouldn’t be the last time either. Pain was really just a common occurrence to her. 

But this pain, Arya had to admit, was bad. It was almost making her want to give up on living. It had been two weeks since she had a seen a soul other than her three immediate torturers. 

At first, she had faced them fastidiously, with nothing more than a glare but over their two weeks together, they had worn her down. Now Arya spat and swore at them without limit. What else could they do to her? They had caused her almost every possible pain.

She had been undercover before but not this deep. It was almost like she had forgotten who she was at this point. She was Cat, a girl who had howled in pain for two weeks straight. She was no longer Arya Stark. She was only Cat. 

Still even Arya’s fire was beginning to dampen with the passing days. Her hands were tied so tightly against a board that they bled, just like the rest of her body, which was tied to a chair. She had tried to escape her bindings a few times but she was unable to get out of them, even when she dislocated her thumbs like she had been taught. That had been a lot of pain for no result. Her legs ached from being tied to the legs of her chairs for too long. Everything ached really. Even her heart. 

“I’m back, little Cat, did you miss me?” a voice purred from behind her. 

Arya jolted in revulsion from that voice. 

“No I can assure you, I did not H’ghar,” Arya snarled in reply. 

A girl (or the Waif as Arya had taken to calling her) was sitting in front of Arya sharpening her knife carefully, a knife that had been under Arya’s skin too many times for to have counted, sneered, her teeth seeming to sink painfully into her lips. 

But H’ghar just laughed, a warm drawl that unwitted Arya every time she heard it. 

“Such a shame, such rudeness especially since I bought you a such a lovely little present this time too.” 

An involuntary shiver ran through Arya. A present usually meant even more pain. 

Without permission tears sprang to Arya’s eyes as she thought of what was probably coming. She wanted to sob at the thought of what awaited her, but she didn’t. She sat there, pushing back the tears in favour of gritting her teeth and summoning up all of her strength as she glared at him. 

“However this time, I am sure that I will enjoy it much more than you,” H’ghar said at her shoulder, his voice curling over her like smoke that gets caught in your throat. 

Disgusting. 

“You always do,” Arya said sarcastically, “Honestly H’ghar, don’t you understand the concept to a present. It’s about giving, not taking… and you’re supposed to be smart. I must say I’ve been in your company for weeks now and I just don’t see it. I’ve decided that I think you are about as dumb as pig shit. As pretty as it too.” 

H’ghar just stared down at her with his pale, expressionless eyes. Nothing ever seemed to penetrate that barrier of his. It was as though he had no ego, no flames to fan, not soul to stir. He was completely blank. Nothing seemed to touch him. 

If Arya hadn’t despised him with everything inside her, she would have almost admired that particular trait. After all her partner always did tell her that her biggest weakness was how easily she got angry, how she was always ready for a fight. He had just always told her that as she was punching him on the training mats, laughing the whole time. She was always trying to prove herself that’s was he said, and he was right most of the time. 

“You are a lovely girl,” H’ghar said, “Even after all these weeks, still very lovely.”

Arya just continued to stare at him, trying to emanate his disconcerting, blank stare. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of showing emotion, even if it was only confusion. What she really wanted to do was growl at him, scream and swear at him, but she refused to do that. She refused to give in to those sorts of emotions. It was hard but she did it, gritting her teeth even harder than they already were. 

The waif snarled, throwing her knife at Arya’s shoulder. It nicked her, cutting her shoulder but Arya barely made a sound. She wanted even less to give any sort of satisfaction to the waif. 

“Why don’t you just put a knife in my heart instead,” she growled after a couple of seconds, “Or don’t you have the stomach for it, you coward?” 

The waif stood, looking as though she would thrive on the challenge of putting a knife right through Arya. Arya wasn’t surprised. Where H’ghar barely reacted, that one made up for it tenfold. 

“I was going to allow you some time to recover from yesterday’s bout of wounds, but with a challenge like that …” she stood up, feeling around for another knife, “I can’t resist…” 

The waif began to twirl her knife, probably preparing to bury it right between Arya’s eyebrows, but H’ghar stopped her. 

“Enough,” he commanded, “I do have a present for the lovely girl. Something that might put a lovely smile on that lovely face.” 

Arya’s eyes narrowed. 

“I found something, or someone who was coming for you…” 

Arya’s stomach dropped as her whole being twisted with fear. 

If anyone had followed her in on this mission, they would be dead within seconds. She had already been severally compromised although Arya wasn’t sure if they knew she was an officer. From what the waif had said, they knew she was an enemy but she had implied that they thought that she was somehow connected to an opposing gang. Arya lived in hope that that was what they thought, although that was less likely with every passing moment. Rival gang members would receive a kinder death than a police officer. 

Regardless all officers knew never to follow someone in when they were undercover. It was basic training. Following someone in could not only jeopardise the mission but more than that. There were surely countless lives that would be in danger by now, especially in a sting this big. She was not the only agent undercover. There was more than just her life at stake. If anyone was to come after her…

Her mind jumped to her partner. He would risk anything to save her she knew that. They had been partnered for years at this point, and had known each other even longer. 

No, I know him, Arya thought stubbornly, and he’s knows me, he knows I wouldn’t want him to come for me. 

Arya took a steadying breath. 

He knows that I wouldn’t want to come after me, she thought again, her words holding the reverence of a prayer. 

She was praying in a way. Praying that he listened to her, that he hadn’t followed her in. That he was safe somewhere working with the police on taking H’ghar’s entire operation down, and not somewhere alone as he tried to figure out a way to get her out. 

Scuffled pulled her from her thoughts as two of H’ghar’s associates brought forth a tall figure with a bag over his head. 

Arya didn’t need to see his face to know who it was. 

Her once steady breathing suddenly got must faster and the tears that she had refused to allow during any of the treatment that she had been subject to, began to gush down her face. 

“No, please…” 

Arya’s voice sounded like a croak of its former self, and it only grew weaker as the material was pulled off the victim’s head. Suddenly Gendry’s blue eyes were boring down into hers, looking dazed, as he grew used to the light. They were fixed on her in an instant, taking her in. Arya could see him taking a mental assessment of her as he stood before her. 

“My god… No you stupid man, no why did you come…” she sobbed out, unable to restrain herself any longer. 

“I’m sorry, Cat,” he said, sticking to her cover.

“So sweet,” the Waif sneered from her corner, “And I thought you two were only cops together…”

Cops.

The waif let out a shrill laugh. 

“But no, you’re so much more. You’re his little slut.” 

Her voice was sickening to listen to, all baiting and cruelty. 

While Arya had grown as near to immune from its baiting ring as a person could, Gendry hadn’t even been exposed to it. He lunged forward, baring his teeth in anger. 

The waif laughed louder as he lunged toward her again and again, held back by H’ghar’s men. 

“Quiet,” H’ghar’s voice rang out through the empty warehouse, his eyes cold with a rage Arya couldn’t fathom as his pale eyes bounced between them, “Since we picked him up, we know the police are coming. We need to get rid of them both.” 

H’ghar pulled out his gun, stroking it like a lover. 

“I think I am going to kill him first… someone get a tarp.”

Arya screamed with everything in her, pleading for Gendry’s life without hesitation or consideration for her own. She couldn’t watch him die. She would die if she had to see the light fade from his bright eyes. 

A sharp slap stopped her shouting, her cheek stinging while her thoughts scrambled amongst themselves. The waif. 

Arya hated her. 

Arya pulled up her head, her eyes blinking with pain as she looked for everywhere for Gendry. The first thing she saw was a tarp being laid down. The second thing she saw was Gendry. 

He was staring at her, his look so full of love that she would have seen only him, if they had been a different situation. It was a look that she was somewhat familiar with, yet it was something that she had never seen. Arya almost had a sense that he was taking in her every detail, trying to memorise her. She had a sense that he wanted hers to be the last face he ever saw but she couldn’t allow that. 

He was forced down on his knees and all Arya could do was sob, tugging fiercely against her restraints as her mouth moving with faded screams. She held his stare, staring at him with all the love that she had for him. Trying to mentally communicate it to him.

“H’ghar… Jaqen, I am begging you. Please, don’t do this, let him go… He’s a good man, let him go. You can have me, I’ll do anything…” Arya sobbed, her face red and twisted beyond recognition.

H’ghar gave her a queer, cold stare before shrugging, his finger on the trigger as he held the gun to Gendry’s head. 

“I’m sorry, lovely girl, he must die. You both must.” 

A shot sounded like whip and Arya would have screamed but suddenly people flooding the room and the lights flickered before darkness ensued. Chaos proceeded. H’ghar’s men must have been in the room, the police as well, but all Arya listened for was a glimmer, a sound of Gendry. 

Arya let out a shrill scream, undulated pain hoarse in her voice, that was meant to be Gendry’s name but no one heard her among the noise and gunshots that surrounded her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually can't believe that I finished this, I never seem to finish anything! Hope you all enjoyed :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Review and let me know what you thought!


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